Case 14 Nonprofessional

“Whom can you trust?”

Thomas is the webmaster for a division of a company that is a major distributor of electronic components. Thomas is normally an honest individual. He would never think of taking office supplies for home use, for example, but he seems to feel that ideas are fair game. In practice, Thomas believes he is creative and resourceful. Thus, he thinks nothing of embellishing an idea created and introduced in casual conversation by a co-worker or another division webmaster and submitting it to his superior as if it were his own. Thomas is extremely good at e-mailing ideas to his boss. While many of his written suggestions are ideas discussed informally with other web-masters and co-workers in the organization, Thomas is not very good at giving others credit for their ideas.